Chapter 29 - Guild Meeting

Rowan had forgotten about his guild. Completely and embarrassingly. It was the next day and Rowan was still in a daze from the kiss. He had come up with the idea on a whim, he never actually expected it to work. Knowing Eleanor, she would have pulled away from the kiss and cursed him while trying to beat him to the ground.

But she did not pull away, and she also kissed him back. Rowan could still feel the pressure of her lips on his. The feeling of her hands gripping his shoulders. The sweet smell of her perfume. Just thinking about it had Rowan zoning out. He was sure Eleanor picked up on what he was planning as soon as he did it. Her hatred for the Prince was definitely stronger than the disgust she had for him.

And yet here he was thinking about it when all Eleanor would be doing is trying to erase it from her memory.

With barely a wink of sleep, he had to get up the next morning. At some time through his sluggish start, he remembered that his guilt had a mission. It was wiped clean from his memory. They were supposed to come by his house later.

"Good morning, Eleanor." he greeted her, as he entered the kitchen. He felt like they met the most there.

"Hi," she gave him a small wave, not looking up from the spread of food on the counter.

That definitely was not there yesterday. "Where did all of this come from?" Aside from Eleanor's usual fruit, there were baked goods and pastries, meats, bottled jams, and pickled fruits.

"My parents sent it over, they're very pleased with what happened yesterday." Eleanor picked up a piece of ham and placed it in her mouth. "How is your body feeling? I wasn't really paying attention to see if the Prince landed any hits on you."

Rowan stopped short of the counter. "You weren't looking?"

"Why would I? It's not like I was worried or anything. We knew the rematch was going to be a waste of time, and it was." Eleanor continued eating things off the counter, her mouth half stuffed when she spoke.

Rowan didn't know why it bothered him. "What were you doing the entire time?" His voice came out a little harder than he wanted.

"Eating, talking to my maids, laughing at the royal's facial expressions." Eleanor shrugged.

Eleanor had her usual nonchalant attitude. She had already passed it and was moving on with life. Rowan's heart squeezed. He felt like a fool. And it was all his fault.

"My... friends are coming over today. So if you don't want to interact with them again. Then I suggest that you stay in your room until I tell you to come downstairs."

"Just make sure to open all the windows. And if it smells like one of my perfumes later, you can't complain."

Rowan picked up a knife from one of the drawers of the kitchen and cut one of the loaves of bread before placing pieces of meat and pickled vegetables on it. "Yeah, Yeah,"

They ate in silence and then he helped her pack away the remainder of the food. Eleanor spent some time in the garden looking at the flowers and after a couple of hours his guild members came by. He was sure that if the plan did not go well then he would have known so all he looked forward to was what exactly they did.

Out of all his members, Rowan got the plain job. Yes, dealing with Eleanor was a headache, but they got to break into the Tudor castle and steal things. That was definitely something up his alley.

Eleanor had disappeared into her room and they all met in the dining room like last time. Some were sitting, most were standing. Rowan always chose to stand.

The room was slightly cramped but they made due. There were close to thirty people in the room. Rowan did not want to say it but Eleanor was right in the fact that they smelled.

"Where's the little princess? I haven't seen her lately!" one of the guys in the room shouted. A couple of people whistled at his words.

Rowan rolled his eyes but didn't say anything. Hopefully, her door was locked and she placed something in front of it to keep anyone out. Rowan was willing to go as far as killing anyone here if they tried to take advantage of her.

Donn was sitting at the head of the table and clapped his hands to get everyone's attention. "Now that we are all here, we can say that yesterday was a success. Rowan did a good job keeping the match out just long enough for us to do what we needed and won at that. And since we're all standing here, then I can say that we obviously did well on our end."

Rowan nodded at Donn's words. "So how did it go? What were you able to do."

The guild had managed to get into the castle without being found out by anyone. Their goal from the beginning was to send a message to the royal family. Take some things from the castle, and leave it so that they will know that someone was there. It was possible that they could pin it on Rowan, but there was no evidence and he could just say that people used the very publicized rematch as a way to get into the castle.

"We know that stirring the pot may put them on our tail. But it's worth it if we can shake them up and make them paranoid. They should know that people are acting out against them." Mark, one of the other older members of the guild spoke. He was ten years older than Rowan and was one of the people who taught him everything he knew.

"Two losses in one day, how will they manage?" Donn chuckled, leaning back into his chair. "They will definitely want to investigate this in private. Announcing this to the public would just add to their humiliation."

"And what about Eleanor?" Shannon, a female member spoke up.

Rowan raised an eyebrow. "What about her?"

"That whole show you put on at the beginning of the rematch. Kissing her in front of all those people. Was it really necessary?" she scoffed.

"I did it to get under the skin of the royals and it seemed to work. Show them that Eleanor was not theirs to take, and I kept that promise didn't I?" All the eyes of the guild members made him look to the corner of the room.

"I'm sure that there were different ways to provoke them than to do something so intimate."

"Stop making such a big deal out of this. I kissed her. It's done. Who I kiss is no one's business."

"Are you saying that you've kissed her before?" Shannon pressed on.

Rowan clenched his jaw. "No, I haven't."

"Ok, ok, that's definitely not the focus today. We are successful and that's all that matters." Another guild member waved her hands to stop the conversation.

"Now, that we've done this. We can focus on the plan. We have other guilds and organizations behind us on this. Willing to lend a helping hand. Our numbers are growing and we should be able to enact the plan in a month's time." Donn said. "In the meantime, focus on Eleanor and keeping her happy. Take her out to the royal capital and show her off in front of people. Rub salt in the wound a little. The royal family will be too busy focusing on Eleanor that they will never suspect anything going on."